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Comment by jancsika | Hacker News Reader

Oh wow, you've got 10,000 HN points and you are asking why someone would sigh upon seeing that some technical tool has a close association with a cryptocurrency.

Even people working reputable mom-and-pops retail jobs know the reputation of retail due to very real high-pressure sales techniques (esp. at car dealerships). Those techniques are undeniably "sigh-able," and reputable retail shops spend a lot of time and energy to distinguish themselves to their potential customers and distance themselves from that ick.

Crypto also has an ick from its rich history of scams. I feel silly even explicitly writing that they have a history rich in scams because everyone on HN knows this.

I could at least understand (though not agree) if you raised a question due to your knowledge of a specific cryptocurrency. But "Why sigh" for general crypto tie-in?

I feel compelled to quote Tim and Eric: "Do you live in a hole, or boat?"

Edit: clarification

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Apart from the actual meat of the discussion, which is whether the GP's sigh is actually warranted, it's just frustrating to see everyone engage in such shallow expression. The one word comment could charitably be interpreted as thoughtful, in the sense that a lot of readers would take the time to understand their view-point, but I still think it should be discouraged as they could take some time to explain their thoughts more clearly. There shouldn't need to be a discussion on what they intended to convey.

That said, your "you're that experienced here and you didn't understand that" line really cheapens the quality of discourse here, too. It certainly doesn't live up to the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). You don't have to demean parent's question to deconstruct and disagree with it.

Let me quote ‪Carl T. Bergstrom‬, evolutionary biologist and expert on research quality and misinformation:

"Is everyone huffing paint?"

"Crypto guy claims to have built an LLM-based tool to detect errors in research papers; funded using its own cryptocurrency; will let coin holders choose what papers to go after; it's unvetted and a total black box—and Nature reports it as if it's a new protein structure."

https://bsky.app/profile/carlbergstrom.com/post/3ljsyoju3s22...

Other than "it's unvetted and a total black box", which is certainly a fair criticism, the rest of the quote seems to be an expression of emotion roughly equivalent to "sigh". We know Bergstrom doesn't like it, but the reasons are left as an exercise to the reader. If Bergstrom had posted that same post here, GP's comments about post quality would still largely apply.

Sometimes one word is enough to explain something, I had no problems understanding that, and the rest of the comments indicate that too, so it was probably not a "shallow expression" like you claim it to be.

I agree that "you're that experienced here and you didn't understand that" isn't necessarily kind. But that comment is clearly an expression of frustration from someone who is passionate about something, and responding in kind could lead to a more fruitful discussion. "Shallow", "cheapen", are very unkind words to use in this context, and the intent I see in your comment is to hurt someone instead of moving the discussion and community forward.

Still don’t get it. “Cryptocurrency” is a technology, not a product. Everything you said could be applied to “the internet” or “stocks” in the abstract: there is plenty of fraud and abuse using both.

But in this specific case, where the currency is tied to voting for how an org will spend its resources, it doesn’t feel much different from shareholders directing corporate operations, with those who’ve invested more having more say.

“Crypto has an ick” is lazy, reductive thinking. Yes, there have been plenty of scams. But deriding a project because it uses tech that has also been used to totally different people for wrongdoing seems to fall i to the proudly ignorant category.

Tell me what’s wrong with this specific use case for this specific project and I’m all ears. Just rolling hour eyes and saying “oh, it uses the internet, sigh” adds nothing and reflects poorly on the poster.

Maybe, because it seems like the same old tool still ill-suited for the job. Surely, there are some situations where opaque anonymous money is not the solution, but recognizable reputation is? Perhaps it’s most situations.

Maybe we should use cryptocurrency to decide court cases? Since you haven’t even defined cryptocurrency, I guess it’s up to everyone else to come up with a solution that even makes sense to put your comment in the best light. Sorry.

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